


Do I wanna know?

by nishiki



Series: Kliego Moments [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Romance, Complicated Relationships, Drug Addiction, Drugs, Love Confessions, M/M, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, phone calls in the middle of the night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:48:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25458808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nishiki/pseuds/nishiki
Summary: He was drunk. No, he was high. Heroin made him sleepy and curl up somewhere to enjoy his rush. Weed made him sluggish and giggly. MDMA made him paranoid and jumpy. Cocaine made him hyper until he would crash and burn. Diego knew all his rushes, knew what effect the various drugs would have on him. Cocaine. He could hear it on his voice.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Klaus Hargreeves
Series: Kliego Moments [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1818838
Comments: 6
Kudos: 121





	Do I wanna know?

It was a mating ritual. It was a dance. A forbidden tango only they knew how to dance and to commit to. Others who would try this would falter and break away, crumble under the strain and the stress of it all. Others didn't stand a chance. There had been some who had tried, of course. None of them had succeeded, none of them had been able to hold their own in this battle of the wills between them. For others, it just meant heartbreak to get involved with them and their dark wonderland. 

They were stuck in an endless loop, condemned to do the same things again and again.

The phone rang at 3 AM - the loop was starting back up again. Diego Hargreeves found himself staring at the ceiling of his tiny boiler room apartment. Inside the boiler room underneath the gym, it was pitch black. Diego Hargreeves. Number Two. The Kraken. One of the seven adopted children of famous billionaire Reginald Hargreeves. He was homeless. He was living in the boiler room of a gym because he was doing custodial work and because his boss had such a big heart for strays like him. Without Al, he would still be living in his car.

The phone kept ringing. He knew who it was. He knew what it was about. He knew what would happen if he would pick up the phone.

He thought about Eudora. Perfect, beautiful, sexy Eudora. He should be lying in her bed right now, holding her in his arms. But he was here and the phone was still ringing. He thought about Klaus. Perfectly imperfect, beautiful, infuriating Klaus. 

He didn't want to take that phone call. He shouldn't take that phone call. The phone kept ringing, urging, pleading, crying out. It was vibrating on the wooden crate next to his bed, an unknown number flashing on the screen. He took the phone and accepted the call. Five seconds longer and the call would have gone to his voicemail.

"Klaus" He mumbled into the phone without waiting for the other man to say anything on the other end of the line. He knew that it was Klaus. He felt it in his bones, he felt it vibrating in his core. His other half calling out for him. He always knew. He could always feel it. "Where are you?"

"Heeeeeeeeeeeey" 

He was drunk. No, he was high. Heroin made him sleepy and curl up somewhere to enjoy his rush. Weed made him sluggish and giggly. MDMA made him paranoid and jumpy. Cocaine made him hyper until he would crash and burn. He knew all his rushes, knew what effect the various drugs would have on him. Cocaine. He could hear it on his voice.

"Diego!" Klaus called out giddily. "The night is so beautiful! I need a lift, though. There was this dude … He didn't want to pay." He didn't want to hear that. He didn't want to know. He didn't want to imagine it. _Ignorance is bliss._ "Could you pick me up?" 

"No." He said and hung up.

※※※※※※※

He was sitting at the curb god knows where. He thought he knew the place. He couldn't tell for sure. Dazed, he watched headlights come towards him, hope blossoming in his chest like white roses, only to see them pass him by without pausing or giving him a second thought. It was probably better this way too.

"You shouldn't stay here," A nagging voice said close to his ear. He could see the guy as a vague shape beside him dressed in all black but he didn't pay him any mind. Maybe he would think differently when he was sober again. This voice was always haunting him it seemed - telling him what to do, what not to do. It must be exhausting. 

"He’s going to come" Klaus hummed before he slowly got up from where he was sitting on the cold hard ground. He wasn’t going to go anywhere. Diego would come. He began swaying to the tune that he could hear in his head. It always made him think of Diego. Tall, dark, and handsome Diego. "He always does."

"Yes." The ever-nagging voice nagged. "That’s the problem."

"I don't think so. Would you rather have me walk through the bad part of town?" Klaus chuckled as he twirled on the spot. He was barefoot. Weird. He didn't even recall losing his shoes. "In the middle of the night, I mean? There are all kinds of bad people out there. All kinds of bad things that could happen to me out there." 

"I would rather you stop hurting each other."

"Who is hurting who?" Klaus laughed. He twirled again and almost stumbled and fell. "No one is getting hurt here!"

 _"You_ are hurt."

"Yeah." He mused. "But that wasn’t Diego." 

Headlights were flashing in the distance and coming his way while Klaus was dancing at the side of the road. He thought about all the times Diego had come to his rescue and he knew what the nagging voice meant. Every time Diego would help him and take him in ended with one of them getting hurt. How many times had he thought about calling Diego in the middle of the night after he had had a few? How many times had he actually done it? How many times had he come crawling back to Diego after the Kraken had kicked him out of his life? How many times had Diego taken him back?

The loop was continuing endlessly. Every time it started new, there was hope that this time it would be different and then everything would fall apart again and they would be hit with the sweet, sweet pain of heartbreak. 

The headlights came closer, someone honked angrily and drove past him. He watched the red glow of the taillights disappear into the night. The ache of loneliness was delicious in a night like this. The air was warm and heavy. A storm was brewing on the horizon. 

"Klaus, come on!" The voice nagged again. "You are injured and bleeding. You shouldn't be out there. Go to a hospital or something. Maybe this time he isn’t coming."

"He will be here" Klaus insisted with a wistful smile. "I love him … Love. Isn’t that just weird? Shouldn't love be this beautiful thing? Shouldn't it feel warm and fuzzy? Yet it's agony and pain and screaming all the time. And still, we come back together to dish out new injuries every time."

"Klaus … Go seek help."

Another set of headlights appeared in the distance coming his way just as the first drops of rain started falling to the ground around him. He looked in the direction of the upcoming car and he knew that it was him. He felt it in his bones. He always knew. he could always feel it. 

※※※※※※※

Klaus looked horrible as he was hovering at the side of the road - dancing as it seemed. Dancing to a tune only he could hear on naked feet as the rain around him started to pick up. He was dressed in a mismatched assortment of clothes that were clearly not his own and didn't fit him right. There was blood smeared all over his pale face, his hair was all messy and ruffled and had grown out more than last time he had seen him. His hands were covered in blood. If he wouldn't know it any better, Diego would almost be certain that his brother had just committed a murder. 

He wanted to drive past him and yet he slowed the car down and parked at the side of the road. He didn't get out, he didn't roll down his window. He just waited with the engine running. A few seconds passed before the door to the passenger’s side opened with a flourish and Klaus all but fell gracelessly into the seat next to him. The door fell shut loudly, music was softly playing on the radio and rain fell onto the windshield. Diego was still staring ahead, never one shifting his glance to meet the figure in the passenger’s seat. They were silent for two or three heartbeats and then he felt Klaus’ bloody fingers on his left cheek. He allowed him to turn his face towards him as Klaus leaned over the middle console and pressed his bloody lips to Diego’s. 

It was so domestic, so natural, so simple as if Diego had just come home from work and was greeted by a kiss from his loving boyfriend. He thought back to the brief time he had dated Eudora. She had never greeted him with a kiss after a long day but she had kissed him in the morning when she left for work. At one point, even that had stopped. At one point, she had just looked at him with a question in her eyes that she didn’t dare to vocalize. As he deepened the kiss and allowed his tongue to slip into Klaus’ mouth, he banished the thoughts of Klaus just having sucked off or fucked another guy. 

He didn't want to hear about it. He didn't want to know. He wanted to be ignorant, to pretend like Klaus was only his and that he was sober and committed and not whoring himself out at street corners and cheap motels. He wanted to indulge in this fantasy even though he knew that it would come crashing down around him soon enough again. And every time it did, he swore to himself that this had been the last time, that he would never again allow Klaus to make a fool out of him. Here he was. Holding Klaus in his arms. Two halves of one whole. Destined to destroy each other over and over again. 

He tasted the blood on Klaus’ lips and pulled him closer, his fingers in his hair - pulling him even closer until they all but became one person. As they separated again, a thin thread of saliva glistened in the light the drops of rain catapulted back at them from the headlights of his car like a disco ball. 

"We can’t keep doing that" He whispered, but his hands were still in Klaus’ hair and his lips still almost touching the other man’s. Klaus’ breath was still ghosting over his face, his green eyes were still boring into his soul.

"I know."

Did he? He was high as a kite. Did he really understand what he was doing to Diego right now? Did he get it at all? He didn't want to know. 

"You can't just … you can't keep calling me in the middle of the night after playing dead for months and expect me to pick you up because you got beat up by a customer again!" He groaned but never let go of Klaus. "You can't keep putting this shit into your body … you can't keep doing this to me, Klaus. _Please_."

"I’m sorry" His words were deadly as poison and sweet as honey. "I promise it." 

※※※※※※※

He was a liar. That was no secret. He had always been a liar. He was lying when he opened his mouth to say everything was okay. He was lying when he made promises. He was always lying. Even as he was laying in Diego’s bed, his naked body pressed tightly against his own, allowing pleasure to wash through them, he was lying. He made promises and sealed them with kisses even though he knew he didn't intend on keeping them. And Diego was a liar too because he acted as if he believed him. Diego’s kisses were burning hot as he moved inside of him, slithering between Klaus’ legs as if he belonged there. He _did_ belong there. Sometimes he wished things would be different. That he could be Diego’s boyfriend, be here with him in this boiler room, wait for him to return from his job and not carry around so much ballast and hurt all the time.

Later, as they lay together entangled with each other and Diego’s thin moth-eaten blanket, he tried to imagine a world where he was sober, where he was not tormented by the dead, where he could be awake without always being at the verge of a panic attack, where he would roam the city and talk to people and not realize that they were dead.

He wanted all of this to be true but he also knew that it would never be. And Diego knew it too. 

"I can't go on like this" Diego whispered into the comfort of his dark apartment. Outside, the real world was wrecked by thunder and lightning. He could hear rain slamming against the small window of Diego’s apartment. Nights like this were made to say things that otherwise could never be said. Diego’s body was scalding hot against Klaus’ skin. His chest was broad and strong as he cushioned his head on it. "Never knowing if you are okay out there … Waiting for you to call me in the middle of the night to pick you up somewhere … pretending for a few days that everything is okay between us … knowing that you are selling your body to strangers … knowing what you put in your body all the time … never knowing if you overdosed and died or if you got beaten up or killed by some John or dealer … It's too painful."

"I love you." He said as a way of reply - aiming to disarm the other man.

"Not enough, apparently." Diego's words stung like being pierced with a knife right through the heart. It was the truth, though, wasn’t it? It wasn't enough. If it would be, it would be easy to leave the drugs and the horrors behind and just be with Diego, right? It _wasn't_ easy, though, and he _couldn't_ just leave all this behind to be with Diego. 

"You could always go back to Eudora…" He replied quietly even though it hurt. He had wondered if Diego had gotten back together with her. The thoughts just came to him every now and then. He didn't want to know, though. He would much rather be ignorant. "I would understand." Another lie. This one hurt the most. 

"I learned my lesson last time," Diego whispered in response, his thumb drawing circles into Klaus’ shoulder. "I'm too busy being yours to fall for somebody new. It wouldn't be fair to Eudora - or anyone else."

"I can change" He promised and they both knew it was a lie. If he would change and allow the ghosts into his reality, Diego would leave him sooner or later. He wouldn't be able to deal with Klaus and his demons. No one would be able to deal with Klaus and his demons ever. He knew that. Diego knew that. 

"But would you?" Diego then asked as he stared at the ceiling, his expression unreadable in the darkness of the small room. "Change? For me?"

"Yes." 

Diego was on top of him in a matter of seconds and his legs fell open for him to welcome him back in his embrace. The kiss they shared was warm and lazy before Diego pulled away again and cupped his face with his calloused hands as if he was the most precious thing in the world. He could see it in Diego’s eyes that he knew that none of this was true. And still, Diego smiled.

"Then do it." He demanded. "Tomorrow, I’ll drive you to that fancy rehab center in Soho. I’ll visit you every day. I’ll get a better job and we’ll get an apartment together." There was so much hope in those dark eyes even though they had made those exact same plans time and time again in the past. It was a miracle how Diego could still look at him with such hope in his eyes. 

"Okay" He agreed with a smile.

This night, he fell asleep in Diego’s arms but before the sun rose above the city, he was gone again to prowl the streets, knowing that he would come crawling back to Diego next time he would find himself in peril.

※※※※※※※

The old man had finally kicked the bucket. The thought had still not really settled in for Diego, even though he had been there when his body had been taken away - with Luther still being on the moon and all that. As he returned to the house on the day of his father’s funeral, he didn't know what to expect. 

The house held many memories and not all of them were good. Here he had been raised. Here he had fallen in love for the first time. He didn't expect to see Klaus at the funeral. He didn't even know if his sisters would come. 

There had been a huge hoopla on the news yesterday as Luther had returned from his trip to the moon. Although Diego wasn’t particularly looking forward to meeting his brother again, he was glad that he had come home safely. He and Luther might not always have seen eye to eye in the past, but he was still his brother - in a way - and he still cared for his well-being. He couldn't lose another sibling.

As he entered the house on the day of Reggie’s funeral, he took a moment to pause and breathe in the air of his childhood home, notice the smells of the furniture polish and the fabric sprays or the dust lingering in the air from the heavy tapestries in the gothic entrance hall. Home. He was home. When he had come to the house first, he hadn't had time to realize all of this. But now the world seemed to come to a halt at the thought. Home. Back at square one. 

"Yoohoo, Diego!" A familiar voice greeted him and he felt shivers run down his spine. He turned his head to look towards the door of the living room without moving his body. There he stood. Dressed in a weird assortment of clothes, looking pale and wild and unhinged - and so, so beautiful. Gorgeous. "I didn't know if you would come."

He hadn't seen Klaus in over five years now. He had been counting the days. After the last time, their paths had crossed, Diego had no longer answered his calls, no longer went out looking for him in the streets at night. And yet, here he was and Diego’s heart began to stutter like it had when he was fifteen and Klaus had kissed him for the first time in the secrecy of his bedroom at midnight. 

He couldn't help but smile at the other man in return and, as Klaus echoed his smile, he knew that he was trapped again. Back at square one. The loop continued. 

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you think <3
> 
> I was very unsure of this one. Originally, I wanted to write something very different but then it turned into this fic instead


End file.
